WGER should use a panel antenna with panels toward Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland. I suspect the measured pattern is considerably less than the envelope in some directions. Obviously, the format also needs attention, as WUPS should not be higher than WIOG as an Extreme Rimshot. The 60 dBu barely reaches any portion of Midland, let alone Bay and Saginaw Counties. This is the downside of 6 kW DA Class As like WGER. Many stations have chosen 3 kW Omni to avoid this.

The call letters WGER were originally on 102.5, 86000 watts from ~800 feet, before they swapped facilities with 106.3. Originally it was WNEM-FM, and had to change when the ownership was different for the FM and TV, and before the call letter rules changed that would have allowed it to continue. It had a Beautiful Music format. The stations were originally owned by James GERity, the origin of the call letters. I knew a kid who was doing a rotation in Saginaw back circa 1980. He literally thought WGER stood for GERiatric, though he could have been pulling my leg. I think Midland's Al Nash, J.J. Duling's sidekick, from WGRD, may have told him that in jest.

Is THAT where they got the idea for the 486-SX?

Same (x, y, z), different (t)

Your bullet missed my trial balloon.

RTN Price. Not guaranteed, 2 deg source. As of 12:30, 157.71 Down 0.22.

WGER should come in like gangbusters in Saginaw and Bay City. Their signal is no weaker than Wheelz (it's actually stronger than Wheelz in Bay City).

Wheelz gets double the ratings of WGER on a consistent basis.

WGER's ratings stink because their programming sounds bush league.

Good point about KCQ, Realist. Would not surprise me at all if their ratings are as good as those of WIOG.

WGER is indeed crystal clear in Saginaw/Bay City/Midland. As noted by several, the programming just plain stinks. I still think that the Saginaw market would support a true classic hits format, and WGER seems like a natural fit.

WGER should come in like gangbusters in Saginaw and Bay City. Their signal is no weaker than Wheelz (it's actually stronger than Wheelz in Bay City).

Wheelz gets double the ratings of WGER on a consistent basis.

WGER's ratings stink because their programming sounds bush league.

Good point about KCQ, Realist. Would not surprise me at all if their ratings are as good as those of WIOG.

WGER is indeed crystal clear in Saginaw/Bay City/Midland. As noted by several, the programming just plain stinks. I still think that the Saginaw market would support a true classic hits format, and WGER seems like a natural fit.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - “Classic Hits 106!”. Would be a throwback to their hybrid rock/top 40 days in the 80’s before they went to 102.5

Look where the minima are in the pattern. One minimum is toward SAGINAW, another minimum is toward MIDLAND. Near ground level, there is a lot of clutter, so at a six foot RL, there may be a lot of shadowing.

With the DA, the actual pattern is just required to be less than or equal to the pattern envelope. Nulls are particularly subject to being less than the pattern envelope. Toward SAGINAW, this is less than or equal to 1.999 kW, the larger of the H or V polarized signal. Similar toward MIDLAND. BAY CITY is not completely covered by the 70 dBu. The 60 dBu contour BARELY reaches the edge of MIDLAND.

I agree that the format is a BIGGER factor, but the DA is an issue. If there were a panel toward each population center, it would potentially have a better signal.

I would first put a licensed omni ~3 kW/100 meter AUXILIARY on the tower and do an A B FI test around the three population centers. I think you would ALL be surprised at the results.

Last edited by CK-722 on Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Is THAT where they got the idea for the 486-SX?

Same (x, y, z), different (t)

Your bullet missed my trial balloon.

RTN Price. Not guaranteed, 2 deg source. As of 12:30, 157.71 Down 0.22.

Jeremy Ruck and Bill Sanderson did before and after FI comparisons at critical locations on WWBN when they went to 6 kW Max DA ERP from Millington. Bill asked the antenna manufacturer to keep working on the pattern to maximize it. There were considerable H POL and V POL differences, and it ended up at 6 kW measured ERP toward Saginaw, and 5.4 kW toward Flint. They could have been DA from Otisville, but the protection was not in the correct direction. They ended up with the equivalent of about 4 kW omni from 100 meters. Not worth going DA for. I guess they got a good deal on the tower WFBE abandoned.

Is THAT where they got the idea for the 486-SX?

Same (x, y, z), different (t)

Your bullet missed my trial balloon.

RTN Price. Not guaranteed, 2 deg source. As of 12:30, 157.71 Down 0.22.

WGER field strength is fine in Saginaw and Bay City, and it sounds like Midland, too. They have no excuse for lousy ratings, other than terrible programming. The station earned a consistent 4 or 4.5 share for years as a Mainstream AC.

Flipping to Hot AC was idiotic. I guess they learned nothing from the Mix 100 debacle.

Alpha Media is flat out stupid for not flipping to Classic Hits. A Classic Hits station from Houghton Lake (!!!) draws almost the same ratings that they do.

97.7 Midland calls itself Classic Hits, but that is nowhere near a full market signal, and the station sounds more like a bad mix of Oldies and soft AC.

I am a format geek as well as a facility optimization geek. I don't doubt that many of the formats are bad for time spent listening measurements because of "dogmatic formatics" which put politics (such as CanCon) and personal programming preferences ahead of logical choices on playlist selection. It produces tuneouts, the classic is CKWW tuneouts for obscure Canadian selections. I personally don't like much contemporary music. If I did, I might be able to offer more insights on playlists. Perhaps you could list specific playlist selections which offend you, and others which you like, in each format. I love those lists, though I am not familiar with the contemporary stuff. I went from near 100% track familiarity to near zero when rap and grunge wall of sound metal took over.

But I still want to see A B FI comparisons of 3 kW/100 meter omni vs. 4.4 kW/116 meter DA all over the Tri City population centers. Not that hard, it's like proofing an AM array. Listening in a car is different than listening at home or work. I've always had Delco type quality RF radios, as I am a proud GM Family/GM Brat. They work better RF wise than home radios because of all the research they did over the years, so yes, I'm not surprised if you can hear WGER in the Tri City Tri County area on a Delco type radio. Cheap clock radios that won't even tune KOST in a hotel room next to LAX, not so likely.

Last edited by CK-722 on Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:28 am, edited 7 times in total.

Is THAT where they got the idea for the 486-SX?

Same (x, y, z), different (t)

Your bullet missed my trial balloon.

RTN Price. Not guaranteed, 2 deg source. As of 12:30, 157.71 Down 0.22.

Any stronger of a signal towards Bay City would subject 106.1 in Tawas to even more adjacent-channel interference. 106.1 and 106.3 are already 2 of the loudest stations on the dial (rather extreme over-processing from both stations) and if there was any more of an overlap between the two, then from about Standish to Linwood that part of the dial would be a mess.

I am badly in need of new software to analyze and model that more quickly, and incorporating Longley Rice with vegetation and structure clutter data at ground level.

When you combine wall of sound program grunge with equalization/compression/limiting/digital processing with modulation level determination loopholes, the interference model does change unpredictably.

Here's a panel broadband antenna, probably too expensive for WGER, but suitable for the Hudson Tower collocation speculation. I'm thinking that some of our illustrious posters could design a cheap panel antenna where you could steer lighter design panels toward Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland. The Midland County population is becoming more and more significant though.